“Where do I pick it up?” I asked.
She blinked at me, “Oh. It was a civil seizure.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“Automatic with a felony. It’s at the impound lot. Either goes to auction or gets scrapped.”
For a second. I didn’t understand the words. They didn’t land. Didn’t connect. I blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “It’s the law. If you’re acquitted, you can sue to get it back.” She kept talking, explaining timelines, paperwork, procedures.
I didn’t hear any of it.
Auctioned or scrapped. I knew which one Fox would be.
Lai grabbed me by the arm, pulling me away. I didn’t resist, still in shock.
“Lai–”
“I know.”
“Lai…”
“Get in the car.”
I let him steer me out. Didn’t fight it. Didn’t argue. The world felt distant, a TV show rather than my life. I slid into the passenger seat automatically, staring straight ahead.
Lai reached over and slapped me. I sucked in a breath, more from the surprise than the pain. It worked; it grounded me, stinging over the fresh bruises. It hurt, but I was thankful. Pain was better than that hollow, driftingnothing. “Fox…”
“We’ll get him out. He is going to be fine until your court date.” Lai handed me the paperwork with the details.
Four days.
I had four days until my next hearing, four days to get Fox out of the impounding lot. I looked over at Lai, and he met my eyes, giving me a slight nod.
“You’re lucky. Didn’t hit anyone, so it’s not at an evidence lot, just a private yard. We gotta find out which one and figure out how to get him out of there.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Lai grinned, turning on the engine of Aris’s Lexus, his borrowed ride purring with ease. “A prison break? Al, I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter ten
Fox
I pulled back into the spot I was given deep in the lot, far from the entrance. It was a narrow space, squeezing me between a Subaru Impreza and another Ford, a Ranger. The Ranger was still alive, longing for someone; no major damage that I could see, most likely just a theft. She didn’t talk.
Neither did the Impreza. I looked over her damage; the front of her had collapsed inward so completely that it no longer resembled a car at all, just a mess of metal and wires. There was no presence in her, no awareness, no lingering trace of thought—just a ruined shell. The Subaru was dead. Destroyed. No one was coming back for her.
I didn’t have my keys, so I couldn’t turn to see any of the other cars, but I could feel them. The entire lot was saturated with layers of presence and absence, overlapping until it became impossible to separate one car from another. Some were completely gone, empty frames waiting to be processed. Others still held fragments, weak and flickering. And then some had simply stopped resisting, their awareness dulledinto something tired and resigned.
Is that what was going to happen to me?
No, I refused to accept that. Al was coming back. I wouldn’t be just another dead car. I was aware. I was also contained within the boundaries of my own frame, but I was more alive than any of these cars.
My shadows gathered into form, and I climbed on top of my roof.
“Al!” I called out. I knew you couldn’t hear me, but I would call for you for as long as my battery had power.
